Grabbed "The Quest" based on all the positive reviews, and i've gotta say ... wow... this is essentially a full blown, in-depth RPG. The amount of detail is incredible. Amazing for a hand-held phone/ipod game.

It's a classic on Windows Mobile. Best described as a tile and turn-based Arena/Daggerfall, or maybe even Eye of the Beholder. It's a huge game, and the amount of work the developer put into it (and its sequels/spinoffs that you can look at over here) really shows.

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"All opinions posted are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled."

I picked up Flight Control for 99 cents on kathode's recommendation, and I love it. I've only played for a half hour (my lunch break) and it will definitely have that 'just one more try' addictive quality to it. So far my best is 25 planes landed.

Are there any killer apps for the iphone yet or on the horizon? Judging from this thread, it sounds like mostly mini games and games on the go but nothing that makes me want to buy hardware.

Depends on what you're looking for. Certainly the games are leaps and bounds ahead of any other cell phone that I know of, and many I consider extremely good for cheap. The App Store itself is awesome. The killer app is really the device itself. It's basically a mini-computer in your pocket. I used to take my laptop on flights, complete with a carrying case. Now I just toss my iphone in my pocket and I have movies, tv shows, music, podcasts, games, and productivity tools.

As for big upcoming games, Metal Gear is probably the biggest one. Don't know if that qualifies as killer app, but the platform is still evolving. The fact that it's more or less open to anyone means you're going to get a lot of small and experimental games on it, which is a good thing IMO.

Are there any killer apps for the iphone yet or on the horizon? Judging from this thread, it sounds like mostly mini games and games on the go but nothing that makes me want to buy hardware.

I wouldn't call any of the apps "killer" yet, but it is definitely amazing how much high quality software has been released for the device in such a short period of time. www.toucharcade.com is probably the best source of iPhone/touch games and releases.

One of the coolest things about the device is something I mentioned a long time ago and people poopooed me - the interface. Because there are no real buttons, the interface to any game is limited primarily by the developers' imagination, and this has proven to allow for all sorts of interesting dynamics once you combine touches, gestures, accelerometer, soft-buttons, etc. So even the most basic of mini-games take on a new dynamic. For instance in the skee-ball game I am addicted to, you swipe to launch the ball, but you can tilt the device to get some english on it, kind of the way you tilt your body while actually playing skeeball. The physics combined with the unique accelerometer action take the game almost to a Wii-like level, but portable in your hand. Same goes with a recent bowling app, which allows you to swing the iPhone like a Wii remote (or swipe on the screen) depending on your mood.

But even with all the mini games, the different ports of great older mobile games (like Puzzle Quest, The Quest and Rogue Touch) as well as new "lite" releases like Force Unleashed, Spore and Sims 3, we are still just scratching the surface. With a user base of 30 million and growing, plus all the new features upcoming with the 3.0 OS, things are only gonna get crazier and "always online" is poised to revolutionize portable gaming. As I said a while back, I think the first devs that can release a great MMO concept on this platform is going to be crazy rich.

Generally, the games on iphone don't have depth equivalent to a console release. They also don't have the 60 dollar price tag. There are exceptions, but iphone excels at apps that offer bite-sized entertainment you can pick and play for a few minutes or (sometimes) a few hours. As such, I think the notion of a "killer app" may be off-base for the platform.

As Rittch said, the "killer app" for the platform *IS* the platform. There's a ton of fun to be had on the app store for free or in the 1-2 dollar range. It's addicting as heck too, because you know there's another cool one dollar game around the corner. And it's hard to not pull the trigger. After all, it's just a dollar. Also some great releases in the ~5 dollar range recently, like Zen Bound and Oregon Trail.

Oh, and I second Rittch's suggestion of toucharcade. Decent forums too.

I third Toucharcade and I agree with Misguided-I DON'T WANT a killer app for the iTouch. I want games which I can play while I'm waiting in the checkout line for a couple minutes. The iPhone and iTouch is all about casual gaming. It will never come close to the PSP or DS in terms of hardcore portable gaming.

It does indeed follow the storyline of MGS4. It's pretty fun! It's pretty much a shooting gallery with some additional things... like move your finger to move the crosshairs, pinch to "zoom in" with your sniper rifle, take your finger off the screen to get in cover... that sort of thing. You're graded on each mission (like how you were graded for each act on MGS4) and you get Drebin points to "purchase" wallpapers for your iPhone.

The soundtrack borrows from MGS4. The sound effects are spot on (shooting your gun, getting a killing shot in, etc.).

It also comes with a history of the MGS games, which is a neat little bonus.

It does indeed follow the storyline of MGS4. It's pretty fun! It's pretty much a shooting gallery with some additional things... like move your finger to move the crosshairs, pinch to "zoom in" with your sniper rifle, take your finger off the screen to get in cover... that sort of thing. You're graded on each mission (like how you were graded for each act on MGS4) and you get Drebin points to "purchase" wallpapers for your iPhone.

The soundtrack borrows from MGS4. The sound effects are spot on (shooting your gun, getting a killing shot in, etc.).

It also comes with a history of the MGS games, which is a neat little bonus.

I picked up Flight Control for 99 cents on kathode's recommendation, and I love it. I've only played for a half hour (my lunch break) and it will definitely have that 'just one more try' addictive quality to it. So far my best is 25 planes landed.

I picked up Flight Control for 99 cents on kathode's recommendation, and I love it. I've only played for a half hour (my lunch break) and it will definitely have that 'just one more try' addictive quality to it. So far my best is 25 planes landed.

Did anyone else pick this up? Everything about this game is so freaking cool, but I'm running into some serious frame rate issues. Seems like it gets choppiest during the swing animation, which means it's almost impossible to actually hit the spots you need to on the swing meter. Turns into a guessing game as to whether or not it will be losing frames during each and every swing. Frustrating.

Wondering if this is a problem just with my phone, or if anyone else sees it.

Flight Control reached #1 on the app store list. It's a lot of fun. I hope they expand it eventually. Different airport layouts and more planes would be great. Not to mention leaderboards! I havent gotten anywhere near 93 since I got it. Usually get wrapped up trying to direct a big mass of small and big red planes and something crashes down in the lower right where I'm not paying attention.

Another game I really enjoy is Zombieville which is now #3 in the store. Great little sidescroller where you blow up zombies.

I mentioned in the Wolfenstein thread that I think that's great as well. Read on id's site that Doom iphone is very likely!

I picked up Let's Golf the other night on a whim and I haven't noticed the framerate problems. Perhaps you're more sensitive to that kind of thing than I am though.

Just out of curiosity do you guys use any kind of screen protector? I'm not so worried about the screen itself because I've bought a leather case for it but I find that the screen really shows the fingerprints badly. Sometimes it's actually hard to see when you're playing a game on it I find.

Actually my problem with Let's Golf is not the frame rate but the fact that after you select your power, the power swing meter starts blinking which makes it really distracting when you're trying to time the accuracy.

Another game I've picked up is Baseball Superstars 2009. It's...ok. There's pretty slim pickings out there for baseball games so I would say it's the best of the best. But what it really does is make me want to play Power Pros on my DS.

I have been pretty compulsively downloading and playing far too many apps. I have no willpower to resist something that's only a buck. The screen does attract fingerprints, but I've just been wiping it with a clean tissue (without any lotion or vitamin E or whatever else they put in premium type tissues) and it looks brand new once again.

My top apps at the moment (I don't know how to link to the store, sorry):Pandora (free) - uses your established Pandora profile to select music to playNY Times (free) - exactly what you think it is.Tower defense games - I'm a sucker for TD games and have Fieldrunners, 7 cities, Tap defense, Geo defense. Best of the bunch IMO is 7 cities, though all are pretty good.Flick Fishing (.99) - A pretty decent time killer. Not for everyone as it's pretty repetitive, but I'm enjoying it and have already killed about 2 hours with it.Rogue Touch (2.99) - Rogue with a graphic front end. I'm a sucker for roguelikes, and there's nothing more roguelike than Rogue. Deepest is L19, though the last update killed my high score list.Virtual Pool (.99) - An absolute steal. Very faithful to Virtual Pool 3, which I played the heck out of when that game came out. Great, great billiards game.Crayon Ball (.99) - Click a ball to explode it. If 4 of the same color balls drop, they explode and disappear. The game has a meter that goes up each time you pop something and down every time you make a 4+ match. Game over when the meter is full. Pretty challenging and fun. Worth a buck.Tap Tap Revenge 2 (free) - Free. Reminds me of Audiosurf. Good game for a freebie. It'd be great if it could use your stored music as the tracks it has aren't familiar to me. Pretty fun and certainly worth the price.

I tried Flight Control (.99) with high score of 47 so far. My main complaint with the game is it seems to be exactly the same every time. Planes come from exactly the same place, in the same order. It makes it tedious until I reach the upper 20's as there's no real challenge up to that point.

I also have ATC 4.0(.99), which is a different take on the same theme. That one has some weird stuff like directing planes in the midst of a snowstorm which really just serves to make it harder to see the planes. I don't think that really adds to the gameplay. I do like that you can set waypoints for the planes though.

iDracula(2.99), while popular, just doesn't grab me. I hear high praise for the game though. Maybe I'm not the target demographic.

Google Earth(free). Not sure the point. You can't import KML files from the PC. You can't import gpx or mark locations. It's strictly the satellite imagery. I was hoping it'd be more like the PC version, but it is so limited I can't see keeping it.

I also picked up FileAid(4.99) to enable disk mode on the Touch and transfer stuff between the PC and the Touch. while it is functional, it isn't -easy- and I wouldn't recommend this particular program. I haven't tried the alternatives, but I can't imagine it being more cumbersome that this App.

I tried Flight Control (.99) with high score of 47 so far. My main complaint with the game is it seems to be exactly the same every time. Planes come from exactly the same place, in the same order. It makes it tedious until I reach the upper 20's as there's no real challenge up to that point.

No, I think it's definitely random. There are certain points where it will always be the same - i.e. you'll always start with a few of the small reds, the big reds will start coming around 13 to 15, etc. But I've definitely gotten weird stuff like three helicopters in a row bunched up close together. I agree it suffers from "Geometry Wars syndrome" where the beginning is boring, but still one of my faves.

There's also a bunch of JB software I love (Snapture and VideoRecorder3G being the most prominent, WinterBoard with Buuf2, BossPrefs and some critical add-ons such as reminder notifications, 5 icons in the toolbar and the status notifications from the lock screen).

I wish they'd release the Citrix client already. I'd love to be able to do work from anywhere (since my iphone is also my on-call pager).

« Last Edit: March 30, 2009, 02:38:57 PM by Purge »

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"If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners." - Johnny Carson

I wonder if any of you guys have the AppSniper app. It's for those of us that have a little restraint. I could have gone crazy downloading games and stuff but I've really held back because I know that I'll end up with 8 pages of apps and no time to play them all. I also know that with the App store, price drops are inevitable as publishers try to get their games into the top #100 or top #10 because that's when you really start making the big bucks.

App sniper tells you what all the deals are on the App store. You can also search for games and "snipe" them by setting a price at which you're willing to buy them. It will notify you when the game drops to that price (or below). I managed to get Baseball 2009 that way when it dropped from $4.99 to $2.99

I downloaded Flight Control and it's a nice $0.99 game. Very fun, pretty addicting, thanks for the rec.

As far as my go-tos:

1) My Soccer - fantastic app for keeping track of soccer scores. A whole slew of leagues. Detailed match statistics. Standings (of course). Historic table fixtures for leagues. Even has some live-game functionality.2) Scrabble - played this a lot with my wife during our honeymoon on the beach. It's a fantastic app and really well done. They've tied together the ability to place Facebook users now online, which is pretty cool.3) PDX Bus - local public transportation app (for Portland) for bus / MAX scheduled times.4) Euchre (not Euchre!) - the best euchre app out of the five or so that are on the store. Keeps some detailed stats as well (like how many times you've called trump, how many of those you've won, etc.).5) Tweetie - I find it to be the best paid twitter app.6) MGS Touch - pretty spendy but for a huuuuge MGS fan, it's pretty sweet.7) WootWatch - for all of your woot.com / shirt.woot.com / wine.woot.com needs on the go.Eight) ICanHasCheezburger - if I'm killing a minute of time, I'll scroll through a couple of LOLcat pics.9) Dominoes - pretty good dominoes app. Also has high-score online leaderboards.10) TumiNeko - like Topple but with cats. It's crazy but I like it.11) Snail Mail (is this still free?) - a pretty fun little game.12) Evernote - a pretty good note-taking utility. Record 5 mins (?) of voice have it upload online. Also other notes and such.13) Public Radio - plays OBP here in Portland pretty well. Sometimes pauses to buffer, but pretty good overall.(hacked iPhone feature) 14) Qik - Qik.com live streaming. Works OK; not great, but OK.(hacked iPhone feature) 15) Cycorder - like Qik.com (video) but it records to the phone.(hacked iPhone feature) 16) Installous - "try out" some apps before buying. Made me save some money ("this game sucks!") and spend money too ("I really like this and want to support the dev").(hacked iPhone feature) 17) Winterboard - I love my black / white theme (hacked iPhone feature) 18) Categories - set up folders, assign folder icons, etc. I have all of my apps on ONE SCREEN which is awesome

I snagged Flight Control last night and it is way addictive. 25 was my best though. I personally dig the hell out of iDracula but I can understand it not being for all tastes. It's like a Victoria style Diablo clone with guns. What stuns me the most is how good the graphics are. It's a steal at $.99. That's a price where I'll just try something out.

Also love Zombieville, though I wish that had been $.99. Also, Pocket God continues to crack me up with the addition of fireants.

I snagged Flight Control last night and it is way addictive. 25 was my best though.

As someone else mentioned, Flight Control is fun, but gets old pretty quickly. The beginning of each game is pretty boring, and once it ratchets up, it gets crazy-hard in a hurry. My best is 70 so far.

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I personally dig the hell out of iDracula but I can understand it not being for all tastes. It's like a Victoria style Diablo Robotron clone with guns.

New baseball game out called 9 Innings something or other. Apparently a good competitor to the Baseball Superstars game apparently. It's five bucks though so I'm going to hold out for a price drop since I'm not quite finished with baseball superstars yet.

That happens on occasion. Just go around the room and search every square multiple times. There's a secret door there somewhere.

Yeah turns out I missed the "search" button down in the lower left. Found the way out that way. Unfortunately in the next room I nearly died in a fight, and then in trying to find a healing potion, apparently drank one that caused me to self-destruct. Doh!

That happens on occasion. Just go around the room and search every square multiple times. There's a secret door there somewhere.

Yeah turns out I missed the "search" button down in the lower left. Found the way out that way. Unfortunately in the next room I nearly died in a fight, and then in trying to find a healing potion, apparently drank one that caused me to self-destruct. Doh!

Has happened to me many a time. I've found that enjoyment of Rouge Touch (or any Rogue clone, for that matter) is entirely dependent on your tolerance for randomness. I've had plenty of games where things are going along just swimmingly until I happen upon that one monster that kicks my ass (frakking Medusas), fall into a pit trap for the 5th straight level, miss the slime for the 10th time while watching it divide, etc. There is a bit of strategy, but most of it comes down to simple luck.

An Advance Wars type game called "Uniwar" is out for the iPhone now. I've played the first couple of missions and I think that this is going to be a nifty little strategy title for the iPhone/Touch. It's only 99 cents right now which is a huge discount from the regular price of $7.99 (I don't believe it will ever go that high) so you might want to get it while the getting is good.

FEATURES:-3 races, each with varied units-50+ maps to choose from with up to 8 players-Play up to 20 games at once-Team play allows 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4-Campaign mode with 21 missions-Play modes: Multiplayer online, VS the phone A.I., VS friend on same device (hot seat) and campaign mode-Worldwide Global Ladder-Create or join several games-Email notifications when it is your turn-In-game chat channel and sever main chat room-Dedicated game ladder-Rated or unrated game selection-Game settings include fog of war and online bots-Animated units during play-Cross-platform game. Play your friends even if they have another phone model.-Dedicated website.